Black Phone 2 (2025)

To be fair, there were a lot of distractions in the theater when I went to see Black Phone 2. Perhaps that's why I had difficulty losing myself in the movie, but I don't think that alone is enough to explain why I didn't like it as much as the first one. I'll go out on a limb and say, I think The Black Phone is a victim of its own success. The first movie was an unassuming, quality horror movie about a kid trying to escape a serial killer. I feel like this movie is trying too hard to turn "The Black Phone" into a phenomenon. Not every good horror movie needs to be a franchise.

Let me be a little more specific. There were supernatural elements in the first movie, but they played a supporting role, and ultimately served the narrative. In the sequel, they've been pushed to the forefront, jettisoning any remaining tether to reality. As if demoted to the level of franchise mascot, Ethan Hawke - whose subtle creepiness contributed much to the unsettling feeling of the last movie - isn't given much to do here besides go on a murderous rampage, threatening to kill people in their dreams and from beyond the grave - while doing it in ice skates, like a wannabe Canadian Freddie Krueger. And though the setting (while stunning in its frozen beauty) seems to give nods to Friday The 13th and even John Carpenter's The Thing, the movie isn't strong enough to raise these details from the bin of derivativeness to the level of homage.

Even on a superficial level, this movie doesn't have the charm of setting and tone and style that the first one had. The kids are older now, with the focus switched to the sister and her psychic dream powers. The actress did a fantastic job in the last movie. I hate to be vain, but they've given her a ridiculous haircut, and it's like she's a completely different person (I actually had to double check the cast list to confirm that it was the same actress). Maybe it's because they now look like adults (despite still being treated as "minor children" by the camp staff) and it's not quite so charming, but the vaguely inappropriate banter between siblings that felt so effortlessly humorous in the last movie, now feels forced and over the top (I kid you not, the phrase "dinosaur dick" appears in the dialogue at one point). And to top it all off, the movie even lowered itself to include a jump scare or two, as if forgetting what made the first movie so effective. More likely, it's pandering to a different audience. A less sophisticated audience, to my disappointment.

The Black Phone (2021)

I can't keep up with all the new horror movies coming out these days - I just don't watch 'em like I used to. But I had a spontaneous opportunity to take a couple teenagers to see Black Phone 2, and so I wanted to watch the first movie first. My patience for the all-too common low effort formula of cheap jump scares punctuated by an audio crescendo (yawn) has seriously flat-lined. Life's too short to waste time watching those kinds of movies. But that's why I loved The Black Phone so much. This is how you do horror - mystery, tension, characters you care about, just the right amount of straight-faced humor, with a creepy premise that touches on some flavor of unsettling horror (pick your poison), in a movie where the bottom line isn't getting girls to jump into their dates' arms while spilling popcorn all over the floor. The pacing was excellent. The soundtrack was excellent. I loved the commitment to the 1970s setting. The characters were interesting. The kids were great. Ethan Hawke was fantastic as the antagonist. Figuring out what was going on with the black phone, and then watching to find out if the protagonist would find a way to escape made the movie enjoyable, without any need for cheap theatrics. It pays when creators take the horror genre seriously, and not treat it as schlock designed to turn a quick buck. I applaud the filmmakers who made The Black Phone, and I look forward to seeing the sequel.

Split (2016) & Glass (2019)

I remember being hesitant to see this movie when it came out. Not because of the controversial reputation of its director (M. Night Shyamalan has had some hits and some misses, but I respect his talent and creativity), but because dissociative identity disorder is such a tricky subject, that hasn't had the best representation in the past. But here, James McAvoy sells it (keeping in mind that this is fiction, not a psychological documentary). And Anya Taylor-Joy is radiant as always.

I really liked how M. Night effectively turned what is, on its surface, a horror movie about three girls who are abducted by a maniac with a split personality into (ending spoilers!) an origin story for a new supervillain in the Unbreakable universe. I thought that was really clever. The only thing I could have done without is the lazy molestation back story. But other than that, I enjoyed it. I'm looking forward to watching Glass next.

---

I'm not the biggest fan of conventional superhero movies. It makes me sound like a hipster, but the MCU doesn't thrill me - and that was true even before they began to bore the public with a never-ending stream of cookie-cutter blockbusters. I prefer movies that deconstruct the concept of superheros. I liked Kick-Ass, and I liked The Watchmen. It wasn't, "what would a world with superheros be like", it was "what would superheros be like in the real world we inhabit?" I think that's why Batman is my favorite conventional superhero - he doesn't even have superpowers, just a lot of money. Well, that and the gothic atmosphere. But that's what I liked about Unbreakable. What if a real person, in the real world, found out he was indestructible?

Split was good because it functioned well as a horror movie, while also expanding the universe of Unbreakable by adding a crucial new element. Going into Glass, I was hoping to see what M. Night Shyamalan's take on a "conventional" superhero movie would look like. Instead, it spends entirely too much time trying to convince us (itself?) that these superheroes/villains are just delusional. I mean, it's an interesting concept - one of my favorite episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer was the controversial one that successfully argued the posibillity that Buffy was a mental patient and everything was going on in her head. I suppose it could have made for an interesting movie if I wasn't hoping for something different.

Knowing that it's almost certainly part of M. Night's M.O. to bait and switch the audience prevents you from committing to the conceit (it's not one of his more successful deceptions). At this point in the trilogy, I've already signed on to these characters being actual superheros - let them loose! For a filmmaker who has made unpredictability his signature, perhaps the biggest twist of all would have been to do something conventional for a change. And that's what I wanted to see. But, even if I didn't love it, I'll still give M. Night credit for trying to be original. When you chew somebody up and spit them out just for going out on a limb and falling, it discourages them from daring to do it again. And that leads to an industry that runs on stale predictability.

Halloween 2018

The Ritual (2017)

Saw this on Netflix. A good cross between The Descent and The Blair Witch Project (though not shot in the found footage format). Four Englishmen take a hiking trip in the remote hills of Sweden to honor the tragic killing of a friend. When they elect to take a "shortcut" through the woods (as one of the characters warns, "if a shortcut was a shortcut, it wouldn't be called a shortcut, it would be called a route"), they stumble across a pagan cult worshiping some ancient beast as a God. For a while, it seems mostly like all the baggage is just what the friends bring with them into the forest, but there really is something out there, and you do eventually get a good look at it in the end (in a climax that had me quoting Princess Mononoke: "I'm going to show you how to kill a god"). The cinematography is breathtaking - the beautiful setting goes a long way in establishing an atmosphere that is genuinely instilled with fear. I recommend it.

Temple (2017)

Three Japan-o-philes visit the land of the rising sun. The girlfriend is doing her thesis on religious studies. The boyfriend (who is kind of a prick) is mostly along for the ride. The third wheel is actually the most interesting character, and the only one who can speak Japanese. They quickly and conveniently stumble upon clues leading them to what must be the most haunted temple in Japan. There's a potentially interesting story in there about six kids who went missing, and the monk who was found living in the temple, but that's not what this movie is about - that's just background fodder for a gimmicky ghost story. Unfortunately, the acting is a bit wooden, and the writing leaves something to be desired. The creature(s?) are creepy, but the nighttime chase is just too dark (and there are too many shots pointed down the barrel of a flashlight, as opposed to the other way around). There's a novelty (for me, at least) to occult symbolism being associated with oriental spiritualism (as opposed to Christianity or paganism), but the various story threads don't really line up into a logical framework beyond "ghosts are creepy, right?" in the end (which came sooner than I expected). I'd like to see this story told with more substance and less fluff.

The Devil's Candy (2015)

Now this movie has style - and I do love a movie with style. Its taste in music is so good (a heavy metal cross-section of Pantera, Slayer, Metallica, even Sunn O))) - not music I typically listen to, but great for setting the mood of a horror movie), even the "trailer" music on Netflix had me hopping over to Youtube for more. The setup is recurrent of The Amityville Horror - a nice family moves into a house with a dark past, and their lives subsequently take a dark turn - but with a strong serial killer flavor - starring an older-than-I-remember Pruitt Taylor Vince. The cold open is so captivating - a Lizzie Borden/Jim Morrison singing The End-type situation, where a man gets up in the middle of the night and plays power chords on his electric guitar to drown out the Satanic voice in his head - I was instantly sold.

The protagonist family - a metalhead slash painter, his wife, and their teenage (also metalhead) daughter - are attractive and likable, and the movie is largely free of dumb clichés. When the Satanic element begins to manifest itself through art - the father's painting, provided by the real-life artist who's worked on some of Sunn O)))'s album covers - it's glorious. Did I mention this movie has style? It's terrifying - albeit, in less of a supernatural way than one might hope (on that note, it's telling that the killer watches a lot of fire-and-brimstone televangelist preachers; it's not hard to imagine it fueling the delusions of an impaired mind - though the preacher thinks he's helping people, by preying on their fears, he's only magnifying the horrors in the world; it is the height of irony that he, himself, is among the worldly devils he warns about) - culminating in a harrowing climax, but damn, it's not often that I have this much fun watching a horror movie! It just goes to show how powerful a movie can be when it's not just trying to tell a story, but aspiring to be a work of art in its own right. It's no wonder the music and painting plays such a critical role. This is the kind of movie I'd be proud to display on my shelf. (Even Black Phillip makes a cameo!)

Apostle (2018)

At over two hours long, this movie is an epic journey, with a plot that strongly resembles The Wicker Man. Around the turn of the century (last century), a man is sent undercover in his ailing father's stead to infiltrate a goddess-worshiping island cult and rescue his kidnapped sister. The first half plays a bit like Colonia in a colonial village with a medieval sense of justice. But at the halfway point (and I suppose this is a bit of a spoiler), it takes a very dark turn, with some supernatural elements, as the cult begins to implode from within. Most of the horror is human-generated, however, and it gets pretty gruesome. It's a sleek production, with good writing, solid leads, and ace cinematography. It's undoubtedly a tense viewing experience, but if that doesn't bother you, it's very well done.

"The promise of the divine is but an illusion."
"God is pain... is suffering... is betrayal."

P (2005)

The granddaughter of a witch leaves the Thai countryside to seek a living in Bangkok, where she uses her supernatural talents to navigate the sex trade - and get herself into trouble, when she loses control of her powers and a bloodthirsty monster is let loose on the city. It's fascinating to see different cultures take on particular subjects - like witchcraft - to see the similarities and differences in how they're interpreted across cultures. True to Bangkok's reputation, this is as much an erotic film as it is a horror film (and I have no complaints about that). In fact, it feels like three movies in one - a gritty, country-girl-meets-city-life coming-of-age drama gives way to a flesh-eating night stalker thriller, that eventually evolves into a Thai version of The Exorcist! Plus, it deserves an award for most captivating ending credits sequence - this film really knows how to keep the audience engaged through the credits. ;-)

Haunted (2018)

This is a short series available on Netflix - I view it as a sort of modern analog to Sightings. Six stories told in bite-size, 20-30 minute episodes, with dramatic re-enactments. Obviously, you can take "the following is a true story" with a grain of salt, but since none of these stories is designed to prove or disprove the existence of paranormal phenomena (this isn't science, this is entertainment), you might as well suspend your disbelief and take them at face value - they're certainly presented that way, told by the victims and eyewitnesses themselves in first person. Most of the tales lack a satisfying conclusion, but I think that contributes to the scariness, by leaving things hanging out there. Fair warning: you might want to watch this one with the lights on.

Here's what you can expect: in the first episode, a man is h(a)unted by a vengeful ghost, in a setup reminiscent of It Follows. The second episode is the story of the kids who grew up with a devil-worshipping serial killer father. Episode three takes a few pages from the Poltergeist playbook. Episode four is the most positive episode (relatively speaking), about a medium who awakens his gift after being contacted by three kids who died in a well. The fifth episode is your requisite alien abduction episode. And in episode six, a teenage girl's deadbeat boyfriend gifts her a stolen gravestone, so she dumps him and shacks up with the demon that's attached to it. (That description's not a fair reflection of the tone of the episode, but it's not inaccurate, and I couldn't resist describing it that way).

Discussion: it's almost more fascinating trying to think up a psychological explanation for these experiences*. I mean, assuming they're not fabricated whole cloth - obviously, I don't believe in ghosts and aliens (anymore), but I believe that these people (or, if they're actors, then others like them) have had experiences that defy conventional explanation. (To quote Scully from The X-Files, I believe that they believe - doubting their explanations isn't the same thing as denying their emotional experiences). I think it will be fascinating somewhere down the line, when we have a better grasp of how the human brain functions, to explore the physiological (and/or environmental) factors** that lead to things like hearing sounds and voices, seeing apparitions, etc. Just having had an episode of sleep paralysis once in my life, I've experienced the unbelievably realistic delusions the human mind can conjure when it's not functioning correctly, and the intense feelings (especially sheer terror) that can go along with that. Take mere suggestibility as a start. I don't believe in these things - these entities - yet thinking about them is enough to cause a palpable reaction of fear (accompanied by such physiological symptoms as goosebumps) in my mind and body. To quote The X-Files again, we have yet to discover how neural networks create self-consciousness, let alone how the human brain processes two-dimensional retinal images into the three-dimensional phenomenon known as perception, yet we somehow brazenly declare that "seeing is believing".

*When some of the people in this show say things like "houses aren't haunted, people are haunted", or that spirits are "attached" to them, or when one person in a household experiences a lot of paranormal activity but others don't... this all could be interpreted as one person being "psychically open" or "empathically gifted" or some such, but it suggests to me the possibility that these could be the manifestations of an impaired mind (or an enhanced one, depending on your perspective).

**In both genetics and conditioning - as reinforced by The Devil's Candy, it always seems to be those with direct exposure to religious mythology (not always in the form of devotion - sometimes it's "inflicted" upon them by others) that interpret these experiences in such archetypal ways. To provide an example of this phenomenon, a schizophrenic who hears voices or feels presences will be more likely to interpret them as ghosts or demons if he's been taught to believe in things like pure evil and the immortal soul.

Tales of Halloween (2015)

It's fun to watch scary shows and horror movies during October, but I always like it when I get a chance to watch something that captures the true essence of Halloween - costume parties and jack o' lanterns and trick 'r treaters - on the holiday itself. Especially when I don't get a chance to get out there myself (and not being a kid anymore, that kind of depends on the whims of other families). That's one of the things I like about the early Treehouse of Horror episodes of The Simpsons. That's also part of what makes the slasher classic Halloween such a perennial favorite. So I saved Tales of Halloween for October 31st - an anthology of ten (very) loosely connected stories that occur on the night of All Hallow's Eve, very much in the vein of that other, more recent, Halloween classic, Trick 'r Treat.

I'll tell you straight up that it's not as good as Trick 'r Treat, but it wasn't a bad way to spend a Halloween night, cuddled up on the couch with a bag full of candy, after all the excitement of the day has wound down. The stories are more sequential and less interwoven than they were in Trick 'r Treat - occasionally a reference to one short will be made in another, and the trick 'r treaters who feature predominantly in one story are recycled in the others. To give you an idea of what to expect, here's a...well, short description of each of the shorts:

Sweet Tooth - An urban legend about a kid who will eat all your candy (even the pieces you've already eaten) comes to life.

The Night Billy Raised Hell - An unfortunate kid learns why it's a bad idea to egg the guy's house who never gives out candy. (spoiler: it's not because he doesn't know how to enjoy the holiday).

Trick - A group of kids decide they'd rather draw blood than receive candy from a group of adults spending the holiday under the influence (spoiler: that decision is entirely justified).

The Weak and the Wicked - A bullied kid attempts to summon a Halloween demon to exact vengeance on his (rather sadistic) bullies.

Grim Grinning Ghost - A fairly straightforward exercise in suspense, expectation, redirection, and jump scares, when a woman's car breaks down and she has to walk home after listening to ghost stories at a friend's house.

Ding Dong - A rather quirky segment, featuring some kind of demon lady who really wants children, and her soft-spoken mate, as they navigate the temptation of having children delivered right to their doorstep on Halloween.

This Means War - A short that seemed more interesting in its setup than its ultimate conclusion. Basically, a tale of one-upsmanship in the realm of decorating your house for the holiday.

Friday the 31st - An over-the-top, humorous parody of Friday the 13th, involving a costumed victim, a Jason rip-off, and, believe it or not, a UFO.

The Ransom of Rusty Rex - Two desperate would-be kidnappers get a whole lot more than they bargained for when they try to take a millionaire's trick 'r treating son hostage.

Bad Seed - a killer goes on a rampage during Halloween, but it takes the novel form of a sentient (and bloodthirsty) jack o' lantern. Kind of reminded me of Halloween III (the one without Michael Myers).

And there you have it - take it or leave it. I hope you've had a haunted holiday, and if I don't see you sooner, I imagine I'll meet you back here next Halloween!

Final Girl (2015)

Probably due in part to the film's marketing strategy (for better or worse - I was pleasantly surprised, but I imagine that other moviegoers with less sophisticated palates could have been disappointed), I was fearing that this movie would be another cheap slasher with a well-intended but ultimately ineffective attempt to circumvent the usual clichés - as was the case with All The Boys Love Mandy Lane. On the contrary, this movie turned out to be more of an artsy, atmospheric thriller. It's a clever take on the genre, more akin to stories you see about orphaned little girls turned deadly assassins - such as the anime classic Kite, or the more recent Violet & Daisy, Hanna, or even Hit Girl. On that note, Abigail Breslin (who's grown quite a bit since she was Little Miss Sunshine) is enchanting, but then so is everything in this movie. It was also a pleasure to see Wes Bentley again, whom I recognize from recent seasons of American Horror Story. The plot of this moody film - final girl gets revenge against a group of well-dressed, smooth talking lady killers - plays out pretty much how you expect it to, but what makes it so fascinating to watch is its stylistic ambiance (like a modern day Suspiria), and exploration of its characters' fears. At times it's almost like watching a dream. I recommend it highly.

"Most people's biggest fears are on the surface - waiting to pop out."

The X-Files - S9:E17 "Release"

[ S9:E16 "William" <<< Season 9 >>> S9:E18 "Sunshine Days" ]

In this episode, the show revisits the well that is the loss of Doggett's son. Going into it, I'm kinda thinking, they hinted at it in Invocation, addressed it head-on in Empedocles, and then revisited it in John Doe. All of which is fine. But by this point, maybe it's starting to feel a little over-played. I mean, it's a defining element of Doggett's character, and it's a great subject to explore in order to get inside his head, but as far as its importance to the show, it's not exactly Samantha's abduction. You know what I mean? But, since the show is coming to a close, and this is the last chance they'll have to really address the issue, I figure this is a chance for the writers to say whatever it is they have left to say about it, and bring some closure to Doggett's story (and maybe Reyes', too, by association), before (presumably) turning the focus of the end of the series over to Mulder and Scully, where it belongs.

But damn, this episode - a joint effort between David Amann (Hellbound) and John Shiban (Underneath) - is good. It's dangerously close to reaching the level of standout quality (you know I hate rating these things). It has a sense of style to it that I really enjoy out of the best episodes. And that climax? Wow. Those are the kinds of scenes I watch TV (or movies) for. That's entertainment. Robert Patrick really brings it. But even going back to the opener, the episode starts out strong, with a gritty atmosphere, as Doggett raids a dark building and discovers a murder victim plastered into the wall. He turns it over to Scully, and she shares it with her students, one of which is a real prodigy. He seems to have an uncanny grasp of criminal psychology - effortlessly constructing a plausible scenario leading up to the victim's death just from glancing at the condition of her body - the likes of which we haven't seen since Mulder (with his unparalleled investigative talent) left the show.

He is pretty creepy, though, and admits to having visions if he studies cases long enough (he must have trained with Frank Black). Doggett enlists his help in studying the unsolved case of his son's death; his unusual willingness to trust the kid's seemingly paranormal abilities demonstrates the depth of his grief and obsession with finding the killer. The cadet makes a connection to the current case, which involves the mafia and police corruption. Reyes begins to suspect A.D. Brad Follmer of being involved in a bribery, and he retaliates by digging up dirt on the cadet, throwing his trustworthiness into question. Ultimately, Follmer gets the chance to redeem himself (although he acts like a petulant child when angry), and Doggett finally finds closure, following that breathless climax.

Memorable quotes:

Cadet Hayes: Like I said - obvious.

Doggett: Cadet, you should know there's a real good chance you're nuts.

Regali: You're done when I say you're done.

The X-Files - S9:E13 "Improbable"

[ S9:E12 "Underneath" <<< Season 9 >>> S9:E14 "Scary Monsters" ]

I said in my review of the last episode that this season would do well to stick to a serious tone, like it mostly did in season 8. Alas, with this episode, Chris Carter (who writes and directs) is back to his old tricks (the non-mythology ones, that is), trying to do a light episode, infused with questionable humor. Imagine that the writer of such cringe-worthy episodes as Syzygy and Fight Club were to try to construct a copycat of Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose. This is not just Chris Carter trying to fill the void left by Darin Morgan's humor, but actually applying his own extremely dubious sense of humor (also witnessed in The Post-Modern Prometheus) to the formula of what was undoubtedly a winning episode. I'm surprised that they're still chasing past glories this late in the series. And if this and prior episodes are any indication, then I don't think I like Chris Carter's sense of style or humor or music (Nick Cave and the Bad Seed's Red Right Hand notwithstanding). The closest thing to real humor in this episode (the serious, cynical, situational sort of humor this series used to rely on) is a professional numerologist not believing in numerology. And as a director, this episode's technical flourish is the use of split screens, except there's no real point (not like in David Duchovny's Hollywood A.D., where it was used effectively in one scene to serve a joke).

Opening in a Vegas-style casino (that recalls another goofy episode, Three of a Kind), this episode guest stars Burt Reynolds as a card-counting magician (to get a sense of the mood, in one scene, he wiggles his butt in front of the camera while dancing the cha-cha). I've been using the phrase "leave it to Reyes" a lot, but once again, she's relying on a dubious new-agey theory - in this case, numerology - to tie together a series of murders committed by a killer who seems to be driven by the mystical power of numbers (considering the themes of Syzygy and Fight Club, perhaps I should be saying "leave it to Chris Carter" instead). The subject matter allows the characters (especially Scully, who is a scientist) to bring up some interesting scientific concepts (e.g., the Unified Field Theory), but they are stretched to the breaking point - it's like the difference between astronomy and astrology. The idea of counting cards, for example, is seductive, but statistics relies on probabilities. It doesn't allow, in this case, for the accurate prediction of complex actualities - as demonstrated in a ridiculous scene (I actually wrote the word "ridiculous" twice in my notes describing it) which posits an underlying pattern to all of existence, a la The Goldberg Variation. This episode has enough problems in its conception, but what kills it is its goofy tone.

Postscript: I swear, I didn't pick up on this at all, but apparently Burt Reynolds' character in this episode is supposed to be God. And I think that just makes me hate this episode even more. Lame-o.

Memorable quotes:

Burt: You know your problem, my friend? It's not the cards - it's playing the hand you were dealt. Plenty of guys get a bad deal; it's all in what you do with it.

Reyes: Do you believe the universe is knowable as a mathematical calculation of the whole, reducible to a single equation?
Scully: No.
Reyes: Why not?
Scully: Because I don't think that its complexity allows for it to be reduced so simply.

Burt: You know, there's a secret to this game, Wayne-o. And I'm gonna tell you what the secret is: choose better.

Doggett: Don't we at least have to accept that as a possibility?
Special Agent: No, we don't.
Reyes: Why?
Special Agent: Because it's highly improbable.
Doggett: But not impossible.

(Just a cheaper version of Mulder's great line from The Jersey Devil - "highly unlikely, but not outside the realm of extreme possibility?").

Wayne: Go to hell.
Burt: Are the reservations in your name?

Scully: Sir, does it look like we're here to play checkers?
Burt: ...No.

(And neither am I, Chris. Neither am I).

The X-Files - S9:E12 "Underneath"

[ S9:E11 "Audrey Pauley" <<< Season 9 >>> S9:E13 "Improbable" ]

Now this is like what the last season was putting out - classic, dark X-Files representing a return to form. If this season had had more episodes like this one (and less like Lord of the Flies, not to mention the mythology), surely it would have rated higher, or at least could have been labelled an underrated season like 8 was, instead of the confirmation of the show's rapid decline post-Duchovny that it was. This episode's credit goes to John Shiban (one third of the power trio that includes Vince Gilligan and Frank Spotnitz), both for the writing, and for his directorial debut. It's a great episode for Doggett, about the release of a man that he fingered for murder (albeit on circumstantial evidence) back when he was in the NYPD 13 years ago. This event is depicted in the unsettling opener, which effectively captures the fractured psyche of a serial killer - if he really did kill those people. Now, DNA testing has exonerated him, and he's set to walk. But not if Doggett has anything to say about it. He's too close to the case to view it from an objective standpoint, but leave it to Reyes to provide a paranormal explanation involving transubstantiation (unsurprisingly - given the writing this season - involving religious overtones), that could possibly explain the man's guilt despite not leaving any clues tying him directly to the murders, and maybe not even realizing it himself. This is easily one of the highlights of an otherwise underwhelming season.

Memorable quotes:

Doggett: I can't just sit here and wait for this guy to kill again.

Doggett: A cop I know - a man I respect deeply - told me one time, you don't clock out at the end of your shift unless you know you did everything you could.

Bob Fassl: I pray all the time. I pray even when it looks like I'm not praying.

Doggett: You know that what you're sayin's impossible.
Scully: And yet, somehow, it's true.

Damon Kaylor: This isn't about the truth. This is about getting a conviction, Agent Doggett. And if we can't get a conviction, then the truth doesn't matter.

(In other words, the truth is no good without proof).

The X-Files - S9:E4 "4-D"

[ S9:E3 "Daemonicus" <<< Season 9 >>> S9:E5 "Lord of the Flies" ]

I don't expect the streak to last, but so far, this season has been steadily improving since its lackluster premiere. This episode is even better than the last. And if it's the best standalone episode of the season, then I'll be satisfied that the season has at least one episode I can comfortably recommend. It starts with a pretty neat opener, in which a man with the apparent ability to teleport - to disappear and reappear at will - manages to land a critical hit on both Doggett and Reyes while in the line of duty. One can't avoid wondering about the nature and origin of his abilities, the likes of which we've never seen on The X-Files before. Things get even weirder when an uninjured Reyes has an "encounter" with Doggett following the accident (in a rare glimpse into their off-duty lives - although dammit, is there going to be UST between every pairing on this show now?), and you're not sure if she's having some kind of a psychic vision, or if the freak-of-the-week is not only playing with space, but time as well. Regardless, it's not a good sign for Doggett - who spends the episode in the hospital in critical condition - when Scully reminisces about a similar vision she had in Beyond The Sea.

More so than Daemonicus, this is the episode where Reyes gets her turn to shine. And I have to say, I'm starting to like her. She'll never be a satisfying replacement for either Mulder or Scully (which is the same position Doggett is in), but at least she's not an obnoxious character like Diana Fowley, whom I can't even stand. On that note, this episode features the recurrence of Cary Elwes as A.D. Brad Follmer, who was ostensibly a mythology character up to this point. Although, I don't know if I'm just getting used to him in this role, but he didn't feel quite as out of place this time around. His sliminess almost seems to suit his perfectly coiffed appearance. (Plus, he's a great shot)! As for this week's freak, played by Dylan Haggerty (who reminds me of a grimmer version of Darin Morgan in Small Potatoes), he's a real creep, but in a good way. When we see him sharing a twin size bed with his elderly mother, I'm thinking, "god, it's no wonder he enjoys escaping into alternate dimensions." The episode resolves by exploiting a twin paradox that is far more effective than what we saw in Fight Club. Never before has returning to the status quo ever been so heart-breaking.

Memorable quotes:

Reyes: It doesn't make any sense. None of it!

(I think it's amusingly ironic that I was putting the pieces together in my head just as Reyes was saying this).

Reyes: How do you do it? You know what I'm talking about, don't you? There's this world, and there's the world where you live out your sick fantasies.

The X-Files - S9:E3 "Daemonicus"

[ S9:E2 "Nothing Important Happened Today II" <<< Season 9 >>> S9:E4 "4-D" ]

After that lukewarm two-part season-opener, this episode - Frank Spotnitz' second turn in the director's chair (but with a more consistently serious tone than Alone) - starts off strong, with a creepy intro in which an old couple is assaulted by home invaders during a game of Scrabble. It's pretty standard horror fare, but my expectations are pretty low at this point, and you can't go wrong with a formula that's tried and true. Anyway, it ends with a delightfully X-Filesian twist, in which the invaders appear to be demons (joining the ranks of such occult-themed episodes as Irresistible, Die Hand die Verletzt, The Calusari, Grotesque, Sanguinarium, Orison, Signs & Wonders, etc.). Leave it to an episode with a strong Millenniumistic flavor to get me reinvested in the series.

Although possibly representing her first brush with true evil, it's a case that seems tailor-made for Agent Reyes - which is good, because at this point, Reyes is in sore need of a more solid foundation for her character. In addition to a more successful introduction, it was these "bread-and-butter" cases that solidified Agent Doggett's place on the show, whereas Reyes was just tossed at us during the midst of a big, messy mytharc, and hasn't had a chance yet to pay her dues. As the believer in the new believer/skeptic dynamic, she's more of a feeling psychic in contrast with Mulder's cerebral intuition, for better or worse. I think it contributes to the growing impression that this show is becoming less like The X-Files and more like your standard supernatural crime drama.

However, this episode would seem to be more of a vehicle for Agent Doggett than Reyes. Like Via Negativa (also written by Frank Spotnitz), it puts a lot of psychological pressure on Doggett, but relies a little too much on Doggett's supposed affection for Scully. I can see him having a professional respect for her, but by god, is this going to be another case of unresolved sexual tension? If you ask me, it only worked between Mulder and Scully because it was almost entirely implied - when it became explicit, I began to lose interest. But do we really need more of that now? To the episode's credit, Scully is back at Quantico, teaching forensic pathology - and it's great to see her doing something other than doting over her baby for once.

Memorable quotes:

Doggett: Say anything you want about Satanic ritual, but don't tell me you think the devil did this. This case ain't even close to bein' an X-File.

(Sorry, Doggett - for all your protesting, this ain't no Irresistible).

Scully: Science tells us that evil comes not from monsters, but from men. It offers us the methodology to catch these men. And only after we have exhausted these methods, should we leave science behind to consider more extreme possibilities.

Doggett: I believe that the devil's a story, made up to scare people.

The X-Files - S7:E11 "Closure"

[ S7:E10 "Sein und Zeit" <<< Season 7 >>> S7:E12 "X-COPS" ]

Spoiler Warning: This episode continues from last week's cliffhanger, and resolves a MAJOR element of this show's mythology. To say that there will be spoilers is an understatement.

You'll have to imagine that I am starting this review with an audible sigh, followed by a moment of silence. Not in reverence, but a confusing combination of disappointment, mixed with grief. To be fair, I think this episode resolves last week's concerning developments about as well as could be expected. It's not the disaster I was fearing; it's just not the resolution I was hoping for. Don't get me wrong - these aren't bad episodes, from an objective standpoint. An argument could even be made that this was the closure the series needed, just not the one fans wanted. And as a fan, it may take me some time to get over that.

I see this as a reflection of how this show has grown and changed over the years, especially after becoming a mainstream hit in the fourth and fifth seasons, and following the move to L.A., trailing the release of the first movie, which marked a dramatic change in the series' tone. The trouble with waiting until the end of the show to wrap up the mythology is that the show has changed over the years - its creators and actors along with it. I wanted to see the showrunners of the fourth and fifth seasons resolve the mythology, but what we got instead was the showrunners of the sixth and seventh seasons finishing it up. That they were largely the same people is beside the point. Their mindset had changed.

You can feel that, by this point in the series, everyone involved is just tired. I don't mean that they're phoning it in, necessarily, but they seem more committed to reaching that finish line already, than taking the time to properly finish the race they started so long ago. I mean, I have a hard time believing that this was what Chris Carter had in mind for the conclusion to Samantha's arc all the way back in 1993. Who knows - maybe it was. Maybe it's not that far off. But it's certainly not what I had in mind. I want Samantha to be alive. I want Mulder to snatch her from the clutches of an invading alien army on the eve of the apocalypse. I want...I want to believe that it's not over.

There's a genuine feeling of sorrow pervading this episode. But it's not the fun kind of sadness - the kind in Beyond The Sea, when Scully struggled to reveal her father's last dying message. (I guess in that episode, it was Scully's sadness you were vicariously indulging in, but here, you're as much mourning your own sadness at the conclusion to one of your favorite series). It's more of a melancholic depression. A nostalgia for time that has been spent, and that can never again be recovered. Childhood lost - whether at the hands of a serial killer, or just Father Time. It's about Mulder freeing himself from grief, but for the fans, it feels too much like falling out of love. Mulder's closure is the emotional death of the series. What point is there in investigating X-Files any more? Why was this not reserved for the series finale? I should be happy that I still have more episodes to watch, to dull the grief, but it all feels pointless now. The spirit has left the body. The thrill is truly gone.

Well, I better put myself through the motions. Setting the tone for the rest of the episode, Closure opens on the unsettling graveyard scene of last week's cliffhanger, where a group of agents are now digging up the skeletons of 24 children. This is about as macabre as the series has ever been - Paper Hearts and Emily included. But when the ghosts of those children start climbing out of their open graves, with Mulder morbidly waxing poetic in voice-over, it all spills over into the realm of melodrama. Following the title sequence - in which the phrase "The Truth Is Out There" has been replaced by "Believe To Understand" - we learn that the Santa Claus killer is up the creek without a paddle, having confessed to his crimes. But this episode isn't about him.

Which is just as well - child murderers are such an easy caricature of evil, that they seem to inspire writers to get lazy. I prefer a villain whose motivations are understandable. Recognizing within ourselves our own latent capacity for transgression is a lot more interesting than painting the portrait of someone who can be hated with impunity. On the other hand, I had hoped the show was going to flip our expectations upside-down and have the Santa Claus killer be the one responsible for the walk-in phenomenon - justifying his actions as "saving" the children rather than destroying them. Alas, it was not meant to be. And besides, neither the little girl who vanished in the last episode, nor Mulder's sister, are found among the graves.

But, if anything, we've learned by now that every time this case looks utterly hopeless, a new clue will turn up. This time, a police psychic who is familiar with the "walk-in" phenomenon offers his assistance. Mulder is usually very skeptical of psychics, but he may just be desperate enough to believe this time. The psychic explains that in walk-in cases, an "old soul" anticipates the horrible death of a child (which is visited upon the child's parents in the form of a precognitive vision), and transports the child "in starlight", never to be seen on Earth again, in order to spare them their pain and suffering. So, the little girl from last week was going to be abducted by the Santa Claus killer, but the walk-ins got to her first. The ultimate outcome is, unfortunately, that she still dies.

I actually think this "walk-in" thing - saving kids from terrible fates - is a pretty neat idea, after all. I'd love to have seen it used in a freak-of-the-week episode. I'm just not sold on using it as an explanation for Samantha's disappearance (which Mulder is still convinced of). Especially given that, as other reviewers have noted, it's basically the concept of souls ascending to heaven wrapped up in a paranormal wrapper so that Mulder can believe in it. In any case, I don't know how the psychic expects to "find" these kids, if they've disappeared off the face of the Earth. Regardless, he takes Mulder on what Scully anticipates will be a wild goose chase, in search of his starlight sister.

Scully, meanwhile, has better things to do. She hightails it back to Washington in order to have an expert analyze the tapes of Mulder's hypnosis sessions regarding Samantha's disappearance. According to the analyst, Mulder's subconscious mind had allegedly constructed the fantasy of alien abduction in order to compensate for his grief, and give him the hope of finding her, fueling his [apparently not lifelong, after all] search. To its credit, this explanation is compatible with real world critiques on the validity of memories uncovered via hypnotic regression. But for seven years on this show, the characters have lived in a world where hypnosis works. That it doesn't, all of a sudden, is rather convenient for the writers, and smacks of retcon.

Well, if hypnosis is now debunked, apparently channeling is still a credible investigative tool, as - in spite of Mulder's growing skepticism - the police psychic manages to convey a message from Mulder's recently deceased mother, leading them to an air force base, where he finds evidence that Samantha may have grown up alongside a boy with the familiar name of "Jeffrey". (Apparently, the Smoking Man was more of a family man than Agent Spender had led us to believe). At the same time, Scully searches Mulder's mother's house, and finds the charred remains of the document that called off the original search for Samantha after she'd gone missing - signed by none other than a man with the initials CGBS. (One wonders why she would have burned these papers if she was trying to tell Mulder the truth - unless it was indeed a cover-up).

The Smoking Man pays Scully one of his creepy house calls, looking a bit sick from his operation in Amor Fati. His opinion on this walk-in business should be interesting, given his part in brokering the deal to have Samantha abducted in the first place. He claims to know that Samantha is dead - that he let Mulder believer otherwise all these years as a kindness to him. He's not particularly convincing - the lying scumbag that he is - but the events of the rest of the episode corroborate his story. For his part, Mulder concludes that Samantha must have been returned to the Smoking Man after the abduction. (Boy, he must have had some clout with the aliens to not only get one of the supposed hostages back, but to steal Bill Mulder's daughter away from him in the process). The reason he called off the search for Samantha is because he already had her, and wanted it to remain a secret.

Answers are flying fast and furious now. Mulder and Scully return (together) to the air force base where Samantha allegedly grew up, and the police psychic holds a séance. The room fills with ghosts, and one of them leads Mulder to a hidden compartment containing Samantha's diary. In it, she writes about the abuse she was subjected to - government testing - over the course of several years. The diary ends shortly after she mentions running away, at the age of fourteen. The next morning, Scully does some sleuthing while Mulder sleeps one off, and tracks down the E.R. nurse who admitted a runaway matching Samantha's description back in 1979. At this point, it's starting to feel like we might find Samantha alive, after all. But, alas, the E.R. nurse admits to having a vision of Samantha's death just before her unexplained disappearance, narrowly preceding the Smoking Man's arrival at the hospital to pick her up.

And that's it. She's dead. (I guess the Alien Bounty Hunter was lying in End Game). It's the closest thing we can get to plausible confirmation of her demise, given that her body magically vanished off the face of the Earth. But, so as not to leave any lingering doubts in fan's minds, Mulder - convinced after all these years that his search has come to an end - wanders off into the woods and comes upon a ghost children's playground, where he meets and embraces the spirit of Samantha once and for all. (Boy, does she look different - and not just because she's six years older. I know it's just a casting disparity, but I can't help thinking in the back of my head, "it's not really her!"). Seriously though, this is some ridiculous The Lovely Bones kind of shit. And when Mulder says, "I'm free", at the very end of the episode, I can't help wondering if David Duchovny is really thinking, "finally, I can quit this show and move on to something else already!"

Memorable quotes:

Scully: Ed Truelove was 19 when he committed his first murder. He was working as a janitor at an elementary school when they needed someone to play Santa Claus. He never got over the feelings it aroused.

(I would take Scully to task for this baffling leap of logic, but for the fact that it's not her fault. The whole world - the writers of this episode included - suffer from this cognitive dissonance).

Mulder: You dunno how badly I wanted her to be in one of those graves. As hard as it is to admit, I wanted to find her here riding her bike like all these other kids. I guess I just want it to be over.

(Do you, Chris? Do you? But that's no excuse for not ending it right).

Psychoanalyst: There are some wounds that are just too painful ever to be reopened.
Scully: Well, this particular wound has never healed.

Base Cop: You gentlemen need to move along. I have to ask you to turn around and get back in your car. There's nothing to see here.

(You couldn't do a better job of convincing me otherwise if you put a flashing neon sign on the gate that read "secrets inside!").

Smoking Man: Got it all figured out, don't you, Agent Scully?
Scully: All but why you can't just come to the door and knock.
Smoking Man: I did that. No one answered.

Harold Pillar: We're going to need to hold hands.
Scully: What do you mean?
Harold Pillar: I'm going to try and summon their presence into the house.
Scully: Oh yay, a séance. I haven't done that since high school.

Mulder: I have this...powerful feeling, and I can't explain it, but that...this is the end of the road. That I've been brought here to learn the truth.
Scully: Are you ready for it?

(This is getting too heavy. I don't think I like this anymore).

The X-Files - S7:E7 "Orison"

[ S7:E6 "The Goldberg Variation" <<< Season 7 >>> S7:E8 "The Amazing Maleeni" ]

Spoiler Warning: This freak-of-the-week episode features the return of a freak from an earlier episode, so some minor spoilers may follow.

Despite many of the freak-of-the-week episodes in this series concluding with open endings, sequels are few and very far between. (Last season's Dreamland doesn't count because it was actually a two-parter, and not two separate stories). Tooms set the standard in the first season, marking the return of the freak from the earlier episode Squeeze. It was generally a successful sequel, giving fans more of what they liked, no doubt helped by the fact that the concept was still fresh. It wasn't until the freak in season 3's Pusher returned in season 5 that this show featured its second "freaquel-of-the-week". Kitsunegari was a decent episode, but it felt more like an attempt to cash in on an old favorite, and may have inadvertently hurt itself by trying to break new ground, instead of sticking to what made the first episode so fun, flipping its freak inside out (not literally, mind you) in the process, and stretching consistency a little too far. Holding the record for the most time served between appearances, Orison brings back our old friend Donnie Pfaster from season 2's Irresistible.

The one thing that I felt didn't work quite so well about Irresistible was the iffy characterization of Scully. I understand that her vulnerability was an important element of the episode, but I wish they had handled it in a way that didn't feel so inconsistent with the behavior that we'd come to expect from the character. (Feeling uncomfortable about this man's crimes is one thing, but it just doesn't make sense to have Scully getting squeamish about a dead body in one episode when we see her performing autopsies with a jaded demeanor the week before and after). I'm not completely sold on the result, but Orison makes the mostly good decision to combine the themes of Irresistible with those of the religious episodes we've had since (namely, season 3's Revelations, and season 5's All Souls). It's the obvious choice, given the freak's characterization as pure evil, and it gives more meaning to the emphasis on Scully, while also making her uncharacteristic vulnerability feel like a little less of a stretch (as we've seen before, religion is her weakness - in a way that serial killers and dead bodies make no sense being).

On the other hand, I feel that this episode's main weakness is in drawing too much detail out of the hauntingly vague sketch that was Irresistible. Previously, Donnie Pfaster was simply a sociopath - a weirdo who related to women in completely the wrong way, lacking whatever moral compass would prevent him from killing a person just to satisfy his desire to collect inanimate trophies from their body. (By the way, they're still sticking to the "death fetishist" angle here. The character was originally meant to be a necrophiliac, but the Fox network didn't like that word - kind of like how Freddy Krueger was originally written to be a child molester, until it was decided that that was too taboo, so he was changed into a child killer instead - because that's much nicer, right?). But, as an example, I think they play up the whole "he eats fingers" thing a little too much here. Yeah, it's creepy, but it's like he's got this whole convoluted M.O. now, and it just feels contrived, where before it was naturally ambiguous (not that anything Donnie does is "natural", but you get my drift).

Also, in Irresistible, there were scenes in which we got flashes of different characters momentarily envisioning Donnie Pfaster as the devil - in a metaphorical way, but still completely effective to the viewer, because we get to see all that neat makeup. But here, we actually see him transform in one scene, which gives the concept too much significance. Instead of an interpretation of evil, the episode is saying that this man is literally the devil (or one of his emissaries). And while it fits the supernatural bill of The X-Files (although I don't think the original episode was hampered in any way by its lack of supernatural phenomena), I just think it's scarier if, in spite of the "evil" he commits, this is just some guy. We want there to be a reason for the bad things that happen in the world - I think that has a lot to do with what religion is about. But it's scarier to realize that sometimes there just isn't a reason. That this guy is just a freak, and some things that are so horrible that we'd attribute them to the devil are within the bounds of ordinary human nature. Isn't that much scarier?

Anyhow, Nick Chinlund does the lion's share of the work in bringing Donnie Pfaster to life, portraying him not as evil incarnate (for the most part), but rather as just a soft-spoken sociopath with little to no emotional affect. It's chillingly effective. Scott Wilson also guest stars in this episode (you might remember him as Hershel from The Walking Dead), as a prison chaplain who serves as atheist Mulder's "religious wacko" scapegoat, and who also helps Donnie Pfaster escape from prison (in a misguided attempt to square his own past sins with God by playing the Lord's executioner). Mulder and Scully are, of course, brought in to help the U.S. Marshals track Donnie Pfaster down, but not before he manages to do some damage. But while it felt natural when Pfaster got to Scully in Irresistible - she just happened to get in his way, in the course of tracking him down - now he seems to have it out for her. It doesn't completely break plausibility, but it does feel more clichéd (she was "the one who got away"). However, it does also play into the religious themes that put Scully at the center of the episode.

It builds to a suitably harrowing climax, given the unsettling nature of the previous episode this freak appeared in, and closes on a deliciously ambiguous moral dilemma. Because there are some powerful moments in this episode, you're left feeling a little disappointed that it's not better overall, unmarred by more or less minor hiccups. With a little extra push, it could have been something truly remarkable. This is Chip Johannessen's only writing credit for The X-Files, but it's worth noting that he wrote or co-wrote 13 episodes of Millennium - which is appropriate, given that I felt the original episode featuring Donnie Pfaster was something of a precursor to that other series. (One also wonders if, in addition to the coda in the episode Millennium a few weeks prior, this wasn't another opportunity for all involved to use The X-Files to do another "Millenniumistic" episode, now that Millennium had been canceled). At any rate, this is a good, dark episode, that doesn't embarrass the legacy of Irresistible, in my opinion. And it's probably my favorite "religious" episode so far, if only because of what the addition of a freak as memorable as Donnie Pfaster is able to do for it.

Memorable quotes:

U.S. Marshal: You two put this man away.
Mulder: Yeah. Someone forgot to throw away the key.

Scully: I promise you there is nothing supernatural about this man. Donnie Pfaster is just plain evil.

(Although that's what made him such a chilling villain in Irresistible, Scully says this like she's trying very hard to convince herself that it's true - but not quite buying it).

Scully: Mulder, this case doesn't bother me.

(Scully is so obviously in denial when she says this, that it almost justifies me making a lame joke about a river in Egypt. Almost).

Reverend Orison: Everything has a reason, scout. Everything on God's Earth. Every moment of every day, the devil waits for but an instant. As it is, it has always been - the devil's instant...is our eternity.

Mulder: God is a spectator, Scully. He just reads the box scores.

(Preach it, Mulder!)

Mulder: Maybe he unleashed something that he couldn't control. Maybe he thought he was opening the door of perception, but then, unwittingly, he opened the gates of Hell.

(This sounds a lot cooler than what actually happens in this episode).

Mulder: When all is said and done, there's not much mystery in murder.

Mulder: The Bible allows for vengeance.
Scully: But the law doesn't.

The X-Files - S7:E3 "Hungry"

[ S7:E2 "The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati" <<< Season 7 >>> S7:E4 "Millennium" ]

A single episode isn't enough to determine a trend, but after the pervasive romcom atmosphere of last season, the fact that this season opens (post mythology premiere) with what looks to be a traditional freak-of-the-week episode is very comforting. I don't think we've had a classic genetic mutant since season 4 (e.g., Teliko, Leonard Betts). It's not an entirely traditional episode, however - Vince Gilligan has written it from the point of view of the monster (which makes you wonder why it took seven years for someone on the show to come up with that idea). Chad Donella guest stars as the freak in question - a fast food worker in Orange County, California; a sort of shark-man that feeds on brain matter. But this is no inhuman monster; as the protagonist of the episode, he tries very hard (if ultimately in vain) to control his cravings, and blend in with humanity. The episode is actually very clever in making Mulder and Scully out to be the villains, since Mulder's insistence that what they're hunting is a monster directly contradicts the freak's attempts to suppress his carnivorous hunger by convincing himself that he's in control, and not a monster. The subtext about having illicit urges is very haunting (so it's an effective episode, in terms of making the freak sympathetic), and it mounts to an inevitably grim ending. Having the audience sympathize with the freak is a long way from season 1's Squeeze, so the episode is still a product of its era. But it's very effective nonetheless, and a welcome open to the season.

Memorable quotes:

Mulder: Is that, uh...oh my god, is that brain, is that brain matter, there?
Scully: No, I'd say that's ground beef.

Mindy Rinehart: I don't believe in monsters. But I do believe in people, and sometimes they do terrible things - out of weakness, or sickness, or fear. But I do truly believe that deep down inside, even the worst of us wants to be good.

Mulder: I think we're looking for some kind of genetic freak - a carnivorous predator as yet unidentified. A monster, if you will.

Rob (laughing): I'm sorry, but this is like good cop, insane cop.

Rob: So they're a bunch of fat people. So what? Maybe they've got what you would call a biological imperative...to eat too much. Did you ever think of that? Did you? Maybe I've got a biological imperative, too. So why is that such a bad thing?! Like, the world's gonna end?! That is...biology. You can't fight biology. You can't.

Mindy Rinehart: Why?
Rob: I can't be something I'm not.

The X-Files - S6:E18 "Milagro"

[ S6:E17 "Trevor" <<< Season 6 >>> S6:E19 "The Unnatural" ]

I'll say it right out - this episode is a rare treat. With a story by John Shiban & Frank Spotnitz, and teleplay by Chris Carter, it's a love letter to the art form of writing. It's also a dark and serious episode, but one of the more intense and artistic ones - less the formulaic monster-of-the-weeks that once made up the bread-and-butter of this show, and more the rare stand-out episodes that demonstrate what this show could accomplish in its finest hours. Honestly, I don't think I've seen an episode this affecting since season 4's Paper Hearts, and I'd even rate it on a level with Beyond The Sea. Frankly, I'm astounded to find an episode of this quality in the sixth season, but delighted to learn that the series still has it in it to churn out such a one as this. The writing is fantastic, but they really scored with the casting, as well - guest star John Hawkes is very charismatic, able to tell volumes without even saying a word. It hearkens back to a time when a good actor could single-handedly make a freak-of-the-week interesting independent of the cool factor of whatever supernatural powers he might have.

Truly, it's fascinating to see someone so overcome with passion - even if it's what causes them to do horrible things, it's still a spectacle to watch. This is how you write interesting villains - you don't even have to justify what they do, you just have to make it interesting, make it feel compelling. It took me halfway through the episode to figure out what was going on, but the mystery is part of the allure. Is this a story about a writer living out the fantasy inside his twisted mind? (I recall an offhand comment on that subject in the episode Irresistible). Taking up residence in the apartment next to Mulder's, is he writing a story using details pilfered from an as-yet unsolved case, or is he in fact the serial killer in question, the manuscript for his latest novel serving as an unlikely confession to his crimes?

There is a question, at times, of whether there is any paranormal activity at all in this episode, and it's also one of those rare episodes where Scully is more of a believer, and Mulder more of a skeptic than usual. Although it's not what I would describe as a "Scully religious episode", the subject of her faith is touched on, but only subtly (and thus very tastefully, for once). Mulder does suggest "psychic surgery" at one point, but it sounds even more ridiculous than his usual wacky theories. The crimes involve the extraction of the victims' hearts, prompting this episode's joining with Terms of Endearment as episodes from this season with truly striking and memorable visual effects. When the writer starts getting into the heads of our characters (particularly Scully), it plays on the viewer's awareness of the artifice of fiction, as if to insert the writers into their story, allowing their characters to interact with them (in a very understated and not cheesy way, less tongue-in-cheek than Darin Morgan starring in Small Potatoes in order to make jokes at Mulder's expense - to his face). This is a fantastic episode - the kind that deserves to just be watched, and not simply read about.

Memorable quotes:

Mulder: This could be the perfect crime.
Scully: Well, crime is only as perfect as the man or the mind that commits it. Even if it were perfect, even if he made not one mistake, there's still his motive. You find his motive, and you find the murderer.

Mulder: I'm sure many a person's had their heart broken out here, but not quite like this.

Mulder: You're a writer. Anything I'd know?
Padgett: I don't think so. ...You're an FBI agent. Working on anything interesting?
Mulder: A murder case.
Padgett (snarky): Anything I'd know?
Mulder (coy): Possibly.

(I may be spoiling this exchange by writing it down, because much of its effect is produced by the actors' command of their lines).

Scully: Loneliness is a choice.
Padgett: So how 'bout a cup of coffee?

Padgett: Motive is never easy. Sometimes it occurs to one only later.

Padgett: By their nature, words are imprecise, and layered with meaning - the signs of things, not the things themselves. It's difficult to say who's in charge.

Mulder: No one can predict human behavior. No one can tell you what another person's gonna do.
Scully: But isn't that what you do, Mulder, as a behavioral profiler? You imagine the killer's mind so well, that you know what they're gonna do next.

(Here's a hint, Scully - phrase it in supernatural terms, and maybe Mulder will be more likely to believe you).

Padgett: But I have love in my heart.
The Stranger: Yes - as a thief has riches, a usurer money, you have it. But man's only power - only true power - is to destroy it.

The X-Files - S4:E10 "Paper Hearts"

[ S4:E9 "Terma" <<< Season 4 >>> S4:E11 "El Mundo Gira" ]

Paper Hearts opens with an uncomfortable juxtaposition of whimsy and the macabre (perhaps to reflect the similar juxtaposition of innocence and evil that the particular murders this episode deals with evoke), as Mulder (apparently dreaming) begins to follow a laser pointer - like a cat - to a park where the body of a little girl has been buried. (Thankfully, the rest of the episode sticks mostly to the macabre, as this is a pretty dark subject we're dealing with here). He tracks down the spot after he wakes up, orders an excavation, and finds a child-sized skeleton buried in the ground. By a cloth heart cut out of the girl's clothing, he identifies the M.O. as belonging to a serial killer he helped to put behind bars (as in Young At Heart). This, of course, raises the question of how many other victims the killer claimed that he never confessed to.

This is an unsettling premise to begin with, but when Mulder begins to suspect that one of those unaccounted-for victims may have been his sister (first suggested to him in another dream, in which he relives his sister's abduction, but this time it's the killer that takes her away), it becomes personal. It plays on that fear you get when someone (especially a child) goes missing, and you start to wonder - not knowing for sure - if she might not have been one of the victims of a serial killer. Mulder gets a little extreme in this episode (not that that's unusual - he can be pretty intense at times), but in this case you have to forgive him, because it's his sister we're talking about after all. Not someone like his sister, as we've seen in the past (Conduit, for example), but - if the killer is telling the truth - his actual sister.

I mean, what would you do? What could you do, if you had lost your sister (or your daughter), and you thought you had the man who knew where to find her, and he wouldn't tell you? What could you do, but give in to his demands - anything he asks? Could you just walk away? What kind of strength of character would that require? This episode really does a great job of making the emotions personal, by bringing Mulder's sister into it - in a way that doesn't feel cheap and superficial, like it was in Miracle Man. Really, this has been the most touching an X-Files episode has ever gotten - and it feels natural, given the dark themes, not like The Field Where I Died, which tried too hard. Writer Vince Gilligan really hit it out of the ballpark on this episode.

Other notes: Tom Noonan is thoroughly unsettling as the serial killer John Lee Roche (it's funny how true it is that the best villains on the X-Files are the killers with three names), who manages to be one of the most frightening characters in an episode of the X-Files, despite being totally human, and even while doing nothing but sitting behind bars, completely harmless (aside from his mind games). It speaks to the horrible nature of his crimes, combined with his unaffected attitude.

On the other hand, this episode does play into the easy stereotype that anyone who would be attracted to innocence must necessarily be itching to snuff it out (I have no idea how that logic works). Have you ever noticed that the victims in these crimes are always made out to be as cute as possible? I guess it makes the crime that much uglier - and hell, I don't deny that it's an effective horror premise. But I would appreciate a more realistic depiction of this particular pathology. I had to groan when they found the paper hearts in a copy of Alice in Wonderland.

It was pretty exciting to see Skinner out on a case, working with the agents for once, instead of just sitting behind a desk supervising them (i.e., yelling at them for stepping out of line - although there's some of that, too, heh).

Scully's scientific explanation this time is pretty predictable, and utterly unconvincing. Normally, I don't go in for the concept of prophetic dreams, but this is The X-Files, after all. And I have a hard time believing Mulder's dream mind would be able to figure something out from clues he already had, that his brilliant waking mind couldn't work out. There's ultimately not much explanation as to where the supernatural elements of this episode come from, but I can forgive that, because it suits the emotional impact of the script quite satisfactorily in the end.

I really appreciate the continuity, though, when Scully references something Mulder said about dreams in season 2 - a dream is an answer to a question we haven't yet figured out how to ask.

Honestly, when Mulder asks Scully if she believes his sister was abducted by aliens, she should have said, "Mulder, I was abducted by aliens - except that it wasn't aliens, it was really the government." The non-mythology episodes seem to gloss over that whole incident, although I guess maybe Scully is just willfully repressing it because she's not ready yet - until the proper mythology episode - to embrace that truth.

Memorable quotes:

Frank Sparks: I used to think that missing was worse than dead because...you never knew what happened. But now that I know, I'm glad my wife's not here. She got luckier.

Scully: You're in here for life - you've got nothing to lose.
John Lee Roche: I've got nothing to gain.
Mulder: You can gain one moment of decency in your life.

Mulder: Where were you in 1973?
John Lee Roche: What, the whole year?

(See, this sounds funny - and it is - but it's a joke told wryly in the context of a very unsettling and emotional scene - it does more in setting up the inappropriately glib manner of the killer than it does in adding any levity to the atmosphere).

Changeling (2008)

Directed by Clint Eastwood, this terrifying "true" story of a mother (a tastefully subtle Angelina Jolie) losing her child transforms into a chilling portrait of police corruption and institutional abuse when the Los Angeles police force of 1928 - during an administration in which they were essentially glorified gangsters - return the wrong child, and then send the mother to a mental hospital when she objects, in order to cover their asses. The casting of Denis O'Hare as one of the asylum's doctors inspires comparisons to American Horror Story. The second half of the movie centers around a courtroom drama, in which the mother's ensuing fight for justice with help from a sensitive pastor engenders widespread change. In a parallel development, the pursuit and judgment of a horrific serial child murderer among whose victims the mother's boy may or may not have been included provides some measure of open-ended closure to the story. It's an epic, emotional odyssey - not quite as harrowing as Midnight Express, but in a similar vein - that is a good two and a half hours long, but well worth a watch, if you can find the time for it.

The X-Files - S3:E6 "2Shy"

[ S3:E5 "The List" <<< Season 3 >>> S3:E7 "The Walk" ]

If you read the synopsis for this episode - "the agents hunt for a killer who uses the internet to attract his victims" - it sounds like it's going to be a pretty straightforward episode, that may or may not be horribly dated (in truth, these headlines still make the news, but the internet landscape has changed a lot in the past twenty years). But, of course, this is The X-Files, and, lest you forget that, the killer - as seen in the "teaser" that opens the episode, and precedes the credits - kills his victims with such disgusting, over-exaggeratedly mucus-y kisses, and then leaves their bodies an utterly unrecognizable goop, that you know it's some kind of weird freak or mutant or parasite that we're dealing with here. And indeed, this is another mutant episode, of which this series is so fond.

Timothy Carhart makes for a creepy killer - calculatingly sweet to his victims, awkwardly distant to everyone else, including his clingy landlady, and her blind daughter (an adorable Aloka McLean). The latter of which, during Scully's sensitive interrogation, offers some rare insight (for this show) into the tragic consequences of all these largely impersonal murders we witness, episode after episode. You can see in her face a young girl trying futilely to cope with (spoiler, albeit a predictable one) the senseless slaughter of her own mother. I don't mention this often enough, but as much as the writing contributes to this show, the different actors' abilities to nail their parts - not just in the delivery, but even down to their facial expressions - goes a long way in making for such captivating television. This is mainly true of David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson, but also frequently filters down to the guest actors on this show. For an episode I didn't have very high expectations for, it was pretty entertaining.

Memorable quotes:

Detective Cross (in reaction to Scully performing the autopsy herself): Look, I'm not being sexist here, I'm just being honest.

(And sexist. Though I appreciate his candor - it certainly beats being all sneaky and passive-aggressive about it. Scully handled this uncomfortable situation well).

Ellen: Do you think this is easy for me? I finally connect with someone I like, who seems to like me. I'm scared enough to meet him for the first time without you telling me he's Charles Manson.

Scully: Where are you going with this?
Mulder: Okay, it's not yet the finely detailed insanity that you've come to expect from me - it's just a theory. But what if he's not doing this out of a psychotic impulse but rather out of some physical hunger?

(Your typical X-Files monster-of-the-week episode in a nutshell! Lol).

Scully: I don't know too many scorpions who surf the internet.

(The great thing about this sentence is that it makes perfect sense in the context of the conversation, but it just sounds so ridiculous when you take it out of context).

Incanto: When you look at me, you see a monster. But I was just feeding a hunger.

Incanto: The dead are no longer lonely.